Archive for May, 2008

So my room feels kinda warm right now. This is due to the confluence of two factors: 1. the coming of spring, and thus the overall rising temperature, and 2. my main lamp being on. This is a floor lamp I’m talking about — tall, pretty good at the making with the light. Thing is, light tends to be pretty warm…well, outside of poetry anyhow. Y’know, like, “the cold light of morning,” or something like that. Anyhow, that got me thinking.

Light is heat. Even when the thing that is generating said heat isn’t generating light we can see – say a person’s body – it can still be detected as light, right? Warmer points show as red, colder blue…thermal imaging, I believe it’s called. So provided that makes sense…

Heat is motion. Water starts as a liquid, but turns into a gas when heated past a certain point. The atoms are moving so fast that they can’t hold together anymore, and break away from each other. Conversely, when chilled beyond another certain point, the molecules stop moving to such an extent that the water loses its fluidity, hardening into a solid state. This is true, yes? Thus, following the transitive property…

Light is motion. Of course, it has been established as a measurement of motion, in that nothing moves faster than light. But what if light is absolute motion, or rather, the physical embodiment thereof? What would that mean?

Well, first off, it would probably mean that light has no mass whatsoever. Which is why nothing can travel at the speed of light in the first place – people, planets, dust molecules: we all have mass. I’ve never heard of anyone attempting to measure the mass of light before, but I can’t really discount the possibility. Still, it seems rather unlikely to me. Light having mass would indicate that it was made of…well, something. Stuff. Particles. Matter can be converted into energy, which light also is, but it is then no longer matter, right? And if light had mass, wouldn’t that mean that electricity and heat — that all energy would have some amount of mass? I’m not so sure on this one…

Still, what if light doesn’t have mass? Well then, it means that light is motion, like I suggested before. Which might then mean that dark matter is unmotion. Absolute immobility. And also, therefore, matter — as its current name would suggest. But in what role does that leave dark matter? Since, in this hypothesis, dark matter is totally and completely immobile, might that not make it the structure of the universe? The stuff between which motion exists, between which light must travel. Though, if the universe is expanding, then how is more dark matter created? How could something come into existence without ever experiencing motion? And where does that leave nothingness, or the vacuum of space, if indeed that’s what the area between light and dark matter is…?

…But yeah, anyhow. Another glimpse into what I think about on occasion when I brush my teeth.